Get a Little Bit Restless and Dream of Something Wild
by singyourmelody
Summary: April and Jackson, trying to figure everything out in the aftermath of April's wedding. "The short version is this: she doesn't marry Matthew. The long version? Well, she doesn't go to him, if that's what you're wondering." Oneshot.


"Get a Little Bit Restless and Dream of Something Wild"

By: singyourmelody

Disclaimer: Don't own April or Jackson. Also don't own the title which is from Jill Andrew's cover of "Total Eclipse of the Heart," aka the song that played during _that_ scene. You know the one I mean.

* * *

The short version is this: she doesn't marry Matthew.

The long version? Well, she doesn't go to _him_, if that's what you're wondering.

Instead she just goes home. Takes off her wedding dress and places it carefully in her closet. She doesn't eat ice cream or watch rom-coms or whatever else you're supposed to do when you have a broken heart.

Because the thing is this: she's not entirely sure her heart is broken. It's not whole, but it's not necessarily broken either.

Arizona tries calling a couple times, but she doesn't pick up. She needs quiet. She needs a cup of tea and her warm blanket and she needs space.

So on her wedding night, she falls asleep alone on her couch as _The_ _Daily Show with Jon Stewart_ reruns play in the background.

* * *

Then Monday comes and she has to force herself through those sliding doors.

And of course she bumps into him in the hallway.

She can hear two of the interns whispering nearby and that makes something within her snap, because they don't know anything about her or this situation or how utterly destroyed she might be, so she marches right up to him and says hi.

"Hi," he says softly.

She looks directly into his eyes (confidence, April, confidence, but _oh those eyes_) and nods before continuing on her way.

First awkward interaction? Check.

On to the rest of the day.

* * *

The rest of the day is terrible.

Her patient dies, a sixty-three-year-old grandpa recovering from a kidney transplant. He was fine . . . and then he wasn't.

She can still see the look on their faces as she told them, can still hear the sobs they let out, can still see the tears streaming down their cheeks.

She excuses herself soon after and hides in the on-call room. She need to compose herself, she knows this, but suddenly it's like a dam bursts open and all the emotions she's been keeping buried inside come pouring out.

The tears are coming fast and steady and she lets them, half watching the door the whole time because it always seemed like he would be there when she was crying, would always be there when she needed someone to hold her.

But the door doesn't open.

He doesn't come.

So she stands on her own. The collar of her scrubs is soaked and she knows her eyes must be puffy, but she wipes them away and washes her face.

"My name is April Kepner," she says aloud to the mirror. "I am a doctor. I am a good doctor. And I can do this."

She's not even sure what _this_ is, but she decides that it's her life. This is her life. She was in love with one man and then almost married another and she needs to figure this out. And she can. She can do this. So she does.

* * *

Work is her savior, she decides, and she pours herself into it.

(He's doing the same thing, she notes. They always were somewhat alike.)

She picks up extra shifts and makes small talk with the other doctors who watched her bail on her own wedding (although technically Matthew stormed out first, not that any of the technicalities matter anymore). They cast sympathetic looks her way and she is embarrassed. Of course she is. There's no way that this entire situation isn't entirely mortifying.

But slowly, eventually, they stop with the pitying smiles and the empathetic tones. Slowly, life just slides back into its normal pace. It helps that some doctor in Radiology is sleeping with some intern who's so obviously trying to climb the ladder. Attentions are turned towards them and off of her and she is grateful (not that she'd ever condone sleeping your way to the top).

She goes to work and goes back home. It's all very normal. As normal as life can be now.

Which is why, of course, she feels the need to knock on his door late one night.

She almost has to laugh.

Because even as she's raising her hand, her fingers curling into a fist, she wonders why she can't ever let things stand still.

* * *

He looks surprised (grateful?) to see her.

"Can I come in?" she asks.

"Of course." He opens the door wider and she moves past him.

"I hope it's okay I'm here," she begins.

"It's fine. It's always fine. You're always welcome here," he responds.

She nods and looks around.

"It's funny. For as long as I've known you, I haven't been here very often. This is all a little strange to me," she says.

He pauses for a moment. "That's true. It's like recently we fit into the corners of each others' lives in the hospital but never much beyond that."

"Of course, most of our lives are spent at the hospital, so I guess that makes sense?" she offers.

He nods and they are silent for a moment.

"I know I said I needed time. But I'm ready to talk now. Is that okay?" she asks, quietly.

"Yes, I've been waiting."

"Sorry to make you wait. I just- I had some things to figure out."

He shakes his head. "No need to apologize."

She sits carefully on his couch. "I've gone over that day again and again in my mind. And every time I come back to the same question. A question for you."

"Okay. . ."

"Why didn't you want me then?" she asks.

"Wait, you're talking about the day of the storm? When I was injured in the hospital?"

"Yes. I poured my heart out to you, just asking for _anything_ from you in return and you basically told me to get married. You didn't do anything to stop me. You waited until my wedding day at the ceremony. Why?" She's starting to sound angry now and she knows she needs to try and keep her cool.

"I didn't know."

"You didn't wha-"

"I didn't know then how much I loved you, April. I thought I was over you, over this thing with us. I thought our story was done."

"And then. . ."

"And then I realized as I watched you stand there, about to give everything to another guy, that I was the one who should be standing next to you. I'm the one for you. And you're the one for me," he says.

She shakes her head. "I don't know, Jackson. After everything . . ." she trails off. "You broke me."

"You broke me."

"What?"

"By repeatedly telling me how bad you felt about us being together. I was going deeper and deeper into this thing and you weren't there. Not even a little bit. We weren't falling together," he states and it feels like he doesn't know her at all.

"How can you say that? I have seen you bed girl after girl. How was I supposed to know that this was it? This was the real thing? How? We never talked about it," she responds.

"I told you I had feelings for you. . ."

"And then you ended this right away. Because that's always what people do when they have feelings for someone," she says, sarcastically.

"I ended it because I knew you we weren't in the same place. When I saw your face . . . how relieved you were that you weren't pregnant. . ."

"Can you blame me?" she exclaims. "We were barely together and we would have had to raise a child, Jackson. We didn't really even know what we were to each other. How could we know how to relate to a baby? How was that negative test result not a relief?"

"I let myself believe we could have that. The wedding in the field, the amazing kid, the family. . ."

"The butterflies," she adds, staring at the pattern in his carpet.

"The butterflies."

"I'm sorry," she says, so so quietly. "I'm sorry for all those things I said to ever make you feel less than the amazing person you are. I hate that I made you feel that way."

"I'm sorry too," he says. "I should have known myself better. I shouldn't have ignored what I was feeling for so long so that I didn't even recognize it."

"We've both hurt each other," she says, "a lot." She shakes her head then. "How can this even be love?"

He shrugs. "That's how we're able to hurt each other."

"Why, because we love each other?" she scoffs.

"Yeah, because we love each other. I am closer to you than any other person on this planet. You know everything about me. You know how to push my buttons and get under my skin, you know how to make me feel better, you know how to make me laugh. . ."

"And we know how to tear each other apart," she finishes.

"Yeah, we do."

She exhales loudly. "So now what?"

"What do you want, April?"

She looks at him. "I want to not hurt anymore. I want to not hurt anyone else."

He nods. "We can do that."

"And I want this," she says gesturing between the two of them. "But how can we do all of those things?"

"If we're going to be together, then we've got to do better," he says.

"And what about Matthew? What about Stephanie?" she asks.

"We just try to be sensitive to the fact that we hurt them. And try not to do anything to further hurt them."

"I've already hurt him so much."

"I know. And I'm sorry for that. I really am."

"Me too," she says and she reaches out for his hand.

He stares at their interlocked fingers. "Been a while," he states.

"I had forgotten what that feels like."

He smiles.

"Jackson, what about that other thing?" she asks.

"What other thing?"

"The sex thing," she asks. Sex was the thing that bonded them together and totally destroyed her whole concept of self.

"Oh that."

"Yeah, that. I don't want to mess this up again. But I can't in good conscience go back to the way it was," she states.

"I know. I actually love that about you. And I never want you to feel bad about our relationship."

"So here's what I guess it comes down to. Do you want to marry me?" she pushes the words out fast as if that somehow can make them less startling. But she can't bring herself to meet his eyes as she says them.

"Yes," he answers immediately.

She looks up at him. "What?"

"Yes. Yes, I want to marry you. That's been my plan all along."

"All along. You mean since my wedding," she asks.

"Since I figured it out, yeah," he states. "Me, you, marriage, house, kids, everything."

"You didn't even hesitate," she says, in wonder.

"Why would I?" he asks, his thumb brushing her cheekbone. "Do you want to marry me?"

"Yes," she says.

He nods. "When's your next shift?"

"I'm off till Friday," she replies.

"Good. I'm off through Saturday."

"Okay. . . I'm not following. Why does that matter?"

"Because we're getting married," he states as if it's the most natural thing in the world.

"Um, what?"

"Let's get married. For real this time. . ." he says.

She pushes his hand away playfully. "Stop it. You're just saying that because you want to sleep with me."

He grabs both of her hands this time. "No, I'm saying it because I want to be married to you. Now. And if you don't want that, if you want to wait, that's fine. I will wait for you. In every respect."

"You'll wait for me," she says in disbelief.

"No sex for this guy until those rings are around your finger and my finger," he says, holding up his hand as if he's being sworn in at court.

"Are you sure?" she says.

"Yeah, I am."

"Then I am too," she replies.

"Then let's do this," he says and he kisses her.

* * *

They fly to Maui and she buys a different, much simpler white dress and he doesn't even bother with a tie.

She walks down the aisle in one of the botanical gardens and it's only him and her, the priest, and the photographer, and it's perfect.

No one interrupts, because no one else is there.

She knows his mother will probably kill him and that her family won't be too pleased either, but after everything they've been through recently, she hopes they'll understand.

This, this wedding, this marriage, is just for them. It's theirs.

He lifts her up and spins her around when the minister says that he can now kiss the bride just as the photographer snaps a pic and she just knows that photo will sit on their mantle forever.

After the ceremony, she asks him if he wants to visit the sights but he stares at her with those eyes that seem to see right through her skin and bones to that muscle that is pumping so erratically she's not sure how it's keeping her alive.

"Maybe later," he says and he grins, before he picks her up and carries her back to their hotel room.

_Later_ comes much later but they spend the next few days swimming and laying on the beach and remembering what it feels like to be in love.

* * *

They argue on the plane ride home about where they're going to live and how they're gonna tell people and whether or not she should keep her maiden name at work. It's their first real argument as a married couple but it's not even a real argument.

Neither can stop smiling.

Four hours in and they've decided to move into his apartment (bigger than hers) and that they are only going to tell people if they ask (to prevent further hurting Matthew and Stephanie) and that she's going to legally change her last name but keep her maiden name at work. It could be confusing to have two doctor Averys.

She pokes him when she tells him that. "That's my name now you realize. Dr. Avery. Has a nice ring to it."

"Just remember who had it first," he counters and kisses her wedding ring.

She raises her eyebrows as she pushes back the arm rest and moves closer to him. The last few hours of their flight pass quickly.

* * *

She was right. His mother is so upset that she couldn't attend the wedding that she doesn't speak to him for three weeks.

And the news spreads like wildfire at the hospital. They are met with "Awws" (from Jo) and a "'Bout time" (from Karev) and silence (from Stephanie). Yang just rolls her eyes. Arizona hugs them both.

It's a crazy time.

She gets lost driving to the apartment from her first shift back at the hospital. He laughs for a full five minutes when she tells him.

"What? I've only been to your apartment a couple of times and never straight from the hospital and took a wrong turn somewhere, okay?" she says.

"Our apartment, remember? That's why this is so funny. You got lost coming home."

She grins at him. "Home."

He smiles back. "Yeah, home."

* * *

_Thanks for reading and reviewing. Love to all._


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